


case2 Safe-House Mouse

by cleanlittlesecret



Category: Princess Principal (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 17:46:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12086136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleanlittlesecret/pseuds/cleanlittlesecret
Summary: "Let's run away together. I have the route planned out. There's a white house waiting for us in Casablanca."Ten years later, Dorothy finds them.





	case2 Safe-House Mouse

**Author's Note:**

> God, I hope I don't end up having to delete this.

The house stood alone, white walls and curtained windows, small gardens and low fencing. As she crossed the porch to knock, Dorothy mentally recited her greeting, and when the door opened, she slipped on her best spy’s smile. “Good afternoon. Sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for—” A hitch caught her voice.

She still knew this woman’s face. A braid pinned one side of her short hair back, and her cool eyes widened in a faint mirror of Dorothy’s own expression, but now an apron covered the front of her clothes, and flour dusted her hands.

“…Ange,” dropped from her mouth. Dorothy caught herself, her mind adapting as she stepped forward to plant a shoe on the threshold. “You’re Ange, right? My work partner from back in Albion?” She had puffed her natural reaction into an act, but it was easy to fake her smile—even though Ange had irritated her at times, they had known each other as children, and it was nice to see a familiar face in this distant land.

The woman’s mouth formed a slight curve. “Hello, Dorothy. It’s been a while.”

“Ten whole years.” Dorothy’s teeth strained against her grin. “I can’t believe I’m seeing you again like this—and in Casablanca of all places!”

Ange’s head tilted to look past her. “You must have had a long walk from the city.” Her gaze returned to Dorothy’s face. “Why don’t you come inside for a little while? It’s cooler in here.”

Was that a trap—a way for Ange to confine and question her?

“That sounds great. It’s hotter than Hell out here, and I’m dying for a drink.”

Dorothy followed Ange’s retreat inside where the aroma of freshly baked bread greeted her along with a voice calling, “Alice, who’s here?” Another woman entered from what must have been the kitchen, and Dorothy gaped. There stood the Kingdom of Albion’s princess with her hair tied in a bun, her sleeves rolled to her elbows, and an apron similar to Ange’s over her dress.

“ _Princess?_ ”

The woman flinched, bunching two handfuls of apron into her fingers, but her smile stayed. “Pardon me? What did you say?”

“Aren’t you Princess Charlotte of Albion?” She offered a curtsy. “My name is Dorothy, and I was with Ange at that Queen's Mayfaire party ten years ago.”

Blinking, the princess relaxed her shoulders. “Oh, yes. I recognize you now. I’m no princess here, though, so please call me Charlotte.” She released the apron to clasp her hands together. “Well, any friend of Ange’s is welcome in this house. Would you like to have some tea?”

“To be honest, I would love some wine right now.”

“I’m sorry, but we don’t have any alcohol here at the moment. I’ll prepare the tea. Ange, why don’t you stay in here with your friend and catch up?” The prin— _Charlotte_ disappeared into the kitchen, so Dorothy and Ange were left alone, silent as the decade of separation between them.

Dorothy moved first, turning her head to consider her surroundings. The house had broken its promise to be cooler than the field outside. Its darkness did provide some relief, but the closed windows walled in the heat and made the rooms an extension of the oven. A couch, an armchair, and a low coffee table huddled together to one side, and a wall-mounted shelf circled the living room at eye level. She stepped closer to examine the shelf’s contents—a few books were stacked in seemingly random places, and two seashells sat together, no doubt natives of the nearby ocean and circled by a black ribbon. “Nice place you have here, Alice.”

“We don’t want the locals to learn our real names.” Ange took her apron off, folded it, and set it on the table’s end. She didn’t appear armed, and, judging from her earlier reaction, she hadn’t been expecting Dorothy’s visit, but there never had been any telling with her. “Would you like to sit?”

“Sure.” Dorothy eased her weight into the armchair to ensure it wasn’t trapped, so Ange took a seat on the couch. That unexpected little smile still perched on Ange’s lips, and Dorothy couldn’t find any tension in her posture.

“What are you doing here in Casablanca?”

“Vacationing.” Dorothy leaned back, stretching her legs as she let her eyes wander towards the ceiling. “I came here to see the sights and escape Albion for a little while, but then I heard about these two sisters who live a little ways from town and make the best bread in the region, so I just had to come buy some.” She flicked her gaze back down to Ange. “What about you and the princess? Why are you in Casablanca?”

Ange held the stare, but her eyes narrowed slightly in response. A metallic whistle interrupted, and just as they both glanced towards the kitchen, Charlotte entered with a loaded tray and a quick, “Excuse me.” After setting the tray on the table, she began pouring three cups of tea. “How long will you be in Casablanca, Miss Dorothy?”

“Just a few days at most. Staying in one place for long can be dangerous to a spy—even one who has left the profession.”

“I see. Here.” Charlotte offered her a cup, and Dorothy accepted it with a murmured _thank you._ It felt odd to be served tea by the princess, even if she had given up her status years ago, but Ange was quick to draw her attention back to the topic at hand.

“You quit?”

Dorothy gave her a look. “ _Resigned_ is a nicer term.” When Ange’s expression didn’t change, she sighed. “But, yes, I did. I wanted to try something different with my life. I’d been working as a spy since I was a teenager, after all, so I needed to find another occupation before my hair started graying prematurely.”

“Oh.”

She couldn’t read the look in Ange’s eyes—they appeared blank, but thoughts must have been whirring behind them, weighing everything she said and did. How much did Ange believe?

“Miss Dorothy, you haven’t tried your tea yet,” Charlotte said. “Is something wrong with it?”

“No, nothing’s wrong, Princess!” Dorothy raised the cup to her lips, but she couldn’t drink. Her presence threatened them, and she couldn’t put it past Ange to have her poisoned to protect their secrets.

Charlotte’s innocent smile made her even more inscrutable than Ange, and her personality had never matched Dorothy’s expectations. She leaned forward to extend a hand, and Dorothy gave it a brief stare before Charlotte said, “May I borrow your cup for a second?”

“Ah. Of course.”

Charlotte poured some of the tea into her own cup and returned it to Dorothy. After taking a drink, she smiled. “Does that make you feel better?”

Her instincts said she couldn’t trust the display, but Ange looked unconcerned as she sipped from her own cup, so Dorothy forced herself to relax. The fact that Charlotte saw through her so clearly could be troublesome, but she ignored the thought as she tried the tea. It was good—hot and strong, some kind tasting like home—but when a bright ring on Ange’s left hand caught her eye, she choked and almost spat the drink back into her cup. They both stared at her as she swallowed and spluttered, “Ange, are you married?!”

“No,” Ange said. “We told the locals our husbands are tending to important business matters overseas, and we live together to help each other out.”

Charlotte raised her hand to show the ring she wore. “We did that so no one would mess with or try to court us, but we didn’t have much to worry about anyways. Most of the people here are scared of Ange, so they don’t bother us much except to buy bread from us.”

“So it’s part of your cover,” Dorothy said while Ange gave Charlotte a sideways look.

As they whispered to each other—(“I’m not scary.” “The day we arrived here, you almost broke a drunk man’s arm because he tried to speak to me.” “He called you ‘honey.’ I wasn’t going to let that go any further.”)—Dorothy furrowed her brows and sipped her tea. Why was it hard to imagine Ange having a husband? Of course, it was another of her lies, but somehow, she didn’t seem the type for marriage.

“So what were you two talking about before I came in?”

Charlotte looked to Ange for the answer, but Dorothy said, “Well, I had just asked Ange why you two are here instead of in London.”

“Ah.” As she shrugged, Charlotte’s eyes fixed on a point past Dorothy. “I’m afraid it’s not too interesting a story. We simply left the Kingdom, Ange and I, to come to Casablanca. She already had this house ready for us, so we’ve been living here ever since.”

Dorothy couldn’t help glancing at Ange when her name was spoken. The explanation had given her more questions than answers: How did Ange have the time and resources to prepare this house beforehand? How long had she been planning to run away? How could she look Dorothy in the eye that last day while knowing what she was going to do?

“Miss Dorothy, do you mind telling us what happened in Albion after we left?”

_Left._ Dorothy’s grip on her cup tightened, but her face stayed pleasantly neutral. “What’s there to tell? It’s all basically international news now.”

“We don’t hear much out here, and what does reach us might not be reliable,” Charlotte said. “It’s different than when you’re in the middle of everything.”

They were avoiding her questions again, redirecting the conversation to the information they wanted. Dorothy would have to work to get her answers. “Well, it’s nothing good. Both sides of the Wall panicked when you went missing. Control didn’t want any more people to learn about your involvement with spies than was necessary, so I spent months working alone to find any leads on you. News of your disappearance couldn’t be suppressed forever, so when the Kingdom blamed it on the Commonwealth, the higher-ups in our country fought back, and…everything fell apart.”

“…I see,” Charlotte murmured. Ange’s eyes flicked towards her, and after returning her cup to the tray, she took Charlotte’s hand. Charlotte responded by shifting closer to lean against Ange’s side.

Oh, this was a _fine_ time for them to start feeling guilty. Trying to calm herself, Dorothy finished her tea and set the cup on the table. Blood pounded inside her head, but she couldn’t let this front drop yet. “Anyways, I’m out of all that now. This trip is my first real vacation in years, so all I have to worry about is the weather and my wallet.”

“Mm.” Ange’s cool eyes caught her. “When did Control give you this mission?”

Dorothy blinked. “What are you talking about?” A drop of sweat escaped her hair to roll down the side of her jaw, the heat getting to her at last, and she wiped it with the back of her knuckles as she said, “I told you, I quit that work a while back.”

“Control wouldn’t let you leave them alive. You would be a security threat to the Commonwealth.” Ange sat up straighter, and Charlotte moved from her side to watch Dorothy with her head tilted.

Dorothy pressed her lips into a line. Sweat dampened her back where it met the seat, trapped her hair against her scalp, but this question wouldn’t go away, so she blew a long exhale through her nose. “All right, Ange. The truth is I took advantage of the mess in Albion to disappear while Control was focused on other matters. You’re not the only person who knows how to leave the country.”

Ange let go of Charlotte’s hand and leaned forward to act as a wall between her and Dorothy. “Then why did you come to our house? You’re a fugitive, not a vacationer.”

“It was a coincidence—”

“How did you find us, and who else knows you’re here?”

“I wasn’t looking for—”

“Don’t say it was an accident,” Ange said. “The world is too big for you to stumble across us this far from Albion. Nothing about this has been by coincidence.”

Dorothy scowled. She wouldn’t make any progress at this rate, so it was time for a direct approach. Her act dropped to let all her feelings towards Ange and Charlotte show on her face. “Fine then. You want the whole truth? I _was_ searching for you two, and I came to this house knowing there was a good chance I would find you here. I revisited some leads I first got ten years ago and pursued them further, but I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing, and no one made me come here.”

“Why did you want to find us?”

“Because I have to know—!” Catching herself, she dropped her voice and gaze. Her eyes stung, but she was stronger than this. Time hadn’t broken her composure yet. After steadying herself, she met Ange’s stare again. “I don’t understand why you two left the country when you must have known what would happen. All I want is to know what your reason was, but you’ve both refused to answer me since I walked in that door.”

“It was my idea,” Ange said. “I was the one who arranged everything.”

“But why?” Dorothy leaned forward. “What could cause you both to leave Albion? Why would you abandon your positions, your countries, everyone you knew? _Why_ did you leave?”

Charlotte raised her chin, and her voice was firm as she said, “Because we—”

“To go back to the Black Lizard Planet,” Ange said.

Dorothy bolted to her feet, forcing them both to look up at her. “Like hell are you going to give me that! Albion is stuck in a civil war, Ange! A decade of struggle and work went up in flames because the princess disappeared, and no one could explain it. People have died because of what you did!” She stepped forward, her glare burning at them, and—

Found herself looking down the barrel of a revolver.

The movement had taken a single breath—slipping a hand behind the couch cushion, pulling the gun, aiming it at Dorothy. Ange must have been prepared for this. All warmth and softness had fled her face, leaving behind the blank expression Dorothy recognized, but her body still looked relaxed. This was the girl Dorothy had known, the spy she had worked with.

“Ange!” Charlotte said.

Dorothy didn’t look away. She refused to raise her hands like a common criminal being arrested. A gun of her own was hidden within her dress, but she knew better than to reach for it now. Ange’s aim was too good, her reflexes too quick, and she had been trained not to point a gun at someone unless she was ready to shoot them.

“Go outside, Dorothy. I don’t want to get your blood inside our house.”

Charlotte didn’t protest again. Her face had become unreadable, her lips pressed into a line and her eyes dark. When Ange stood to open the door and let Dorothy onto the porch, Charlotte followed. Outside, she drifted over to lean against the side rail and gaze at the gardens as she pulled her hair down and combed it with her fingers.

A breeze crossed Dorothy’s face and slipped the tang of salt water into her mouth. The field, nothing but grass and a dirt road, spread as far as she could see. No one would hear the gunshot or find her body. She stopped at the porch’s edge, Ange’s presence heavy behind her. “I know you don’t trust me, Ange, but I swear Control didn’t send me here.”

“I know. You wouldn’t have gotten that upset with us if this were a mission someone had given you.”

Dorothy suppressed the long breath slipping between her teeth. She wasn’t safe yet. “Then what are you going to do?” When no answer came, she slowly turned around.

Ange’s expression was still neutral, but sweat glinted at the side of her cheek. She had changed—the spy Dorothy had known wouldn’t have hesitated to pull the trigger and protect her own interests. How long had she been living like a rat in her hole? What could have been worth this?

Charlotte’s sigh rippled the quiet and drew a flick of Ange’s eyes. “We’d really made something good for ourselves here.” She left the rail to draw close to Ange and touch her shoulder. “Ange.” The tenderness in her voice didn’t fit this standoff. Ange didn’t look away, but she leaned in when Charlotte raised a hand to whisper in her ear, and seeing this intimacy between them made Dorothy’s eyes widen. Her stare went to the rings on their fingers—leave it to Ange to hide the truth inside a lie.

“You two…” She hesitated—the idea strung together multiple details she had noticed that day, cast their relationship in a light that made _sense_ , but she couldn’t be sure. The simultaneous look they gave her pushed her to speak. “Did you two…marry each other?”

They both blinked. Charlotte raised a hand to her mouth, but it didn’t hide her giggle, and they shared a glance before she draped an arm around Ange’s waist. “Well, you could say we eloped.” Her voice dropped. “After all, the Wall would have always come between us in London no matter what we did, and my political responsibilities would have trapped me one day.”

“But how…?” Dorothy’s eyebrows furrowed. “You disappeared less than a day after meeting each other. How on Earth…?”

Charlotte beamed as she leaned her head on Ange’s shoulder. If Dorothy didn’t know better, she would have called that expression a spy’s smile. “We knew the second we saw each other that we’re kindred spirits. Once you find something like that, you can’t ever truly go back to way things were.”

“…Okay.” She had her answer then, even if she couldn’t say she understood it all. Had this information been worth standing at the end of a loaded gun? Taking a slow breath, she looked at Ange and tried to drop every bit of pretense. Dorothy had to be genuine now. “That’s all I wanted, Ange. I won’t bother you ever again, and I won’t tell anyone about this. You have my word.”

Ange’s grip tightened on the revolver, but Charlotte hummed.

“We should go, Ange. It’s hot out here, and the bread in the oven will start burning soon.”

After a few long, bitter seconds, Ange lowered the gun, a slow breath leaving her mouth with the motion. “Dorothy, leave. I don’t want to see you here again.”

Everything Dorothy had known of Ange’s personality, her ruthlessness, had told her Ange would shoot her. Charlotte must have caught the questions in her eyes, for she donned that mysterious smile again. “Ange isn’t what you think she is. She’s changed over the past ten years, but to be honest, I doubt you knew what she was really like to begin with.”

They stood together waiting for her to leave, but Dorothy lingered to press the sight of them into her mind. She needed to remember what could spark a civil war, and she wanted to bring this to a good end. Finally, she dipped her head. “Farewell then.”

The road back was long and empty, so Dorothy had plenty of time to consider things. Completing a case had never felt so hollow before, but if she ever tracked that woman down, would she be able to confront her the same way?


End file.
